4 UTILIZATION OF WATER POWER AT NIAGARA FALLS. 



tions, far removed from the centers of population and without 

 proper facilities for the transportation of raw materials or finished 

 products. They had therefore reached the conclusion that the 

 crying need was the transmission of the power developed by water 

 wheels, and rope drives, compressed air, water under high pressure 

 and other forms of power transmission were in turn experimented 

 with but each was found to have its limitations, and it is only in 

 the past few years that electrical engineering with its wonderful 

 discoveries has practically solved the problem and made available 

 at the factory the power of the distant stream. Hence water falls 

 that a few years ago were considered only as obstructions to navi- 

 gation are now of great value. The very language shows the 

 effect of the change. A few years ago we spoke of water-falls, 

 now we speak of water powers. 



A few figures may be interesting in this connection. According 

 to Census Bulletin No. 247 the water power used in manufactures 

 in 1880 equalled 1,225,000 H. P. ; in 1890 1,263,000 H. P. ; in 1900 

 1,727,000 H. P.; the increase from 1880 to 1890 being 3.1%, while 

 from 1890 to 1900 the increase was 36.7%. The figures for 1900 

 do not include water power employed for generating electricity 

 used in manufactures, which would probably add 200,000 H. P. to 

 the amount of water power above mentioned, thus making the 

 increase for the last decade of the 19th century not less than 50%. 

 During the same period the amount of water power developed in 

 the State of New York was practically doubled. 



Of all the water power developments that marked the close of 

 the last century none was on so large a scale, none has attracted 

 such world-wide interest, and none is of such importance to citi- 

 zens of Buffalo and its vicinity as the utilization of the power of 

 Niagara Falls. It is true that the power of this river was used as 

 early as 1725 when the settlers operated a saw mill on the rapids 

 above the Falls, but it was not until after the year 1890 that power 

 development at Niagara assumed more than a local interest. With 

 the success of electrical generation and transmission there com- 

 menced a new phase in the history of industrial Niagara and it is 

 with this later form of power utilization that we are concerned 

 tonight. 



There is of course nothing new in the idea of utilizing Niagara's 

 energy. Every man of a mechanical turn of mind who ever con- 

 templated the resistless force of its falling water has been impressed 

 with the fact that vast industrial progress would result from the 

 diversion of even a small proportion of this power into useful chan- 



